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RKS ON SUPPLY ORGANIZATION 
OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM THE 
VIEWPOINT OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER 



A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE OFFICERS OF 
THE QUARTERMASTER CORPS AND THE QUARTER- 
MASTER RESERVE CORPS ON MAY 11, 1917 :: :: 



By CAPT. CHARLES SWEENY 
FOREIGN LEGION, FRENCH ARMY 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1917 



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REMARKS ON SUPPLY ORGANIZATION 
OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM THE 
VIEWPOINT OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER 



A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE OFFICERS OF 
THE QUARTERMASTER CORPS AND THE QUARTER- 
MASTER RESERVE CORPS ON MAY 11, 1917 :: :: 



By CAPT. CHARLES SWEENY 
FOREIGN LEGION, FREN'^H ARMY 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1917 



102730—17 



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D. of D. 
JUL 16 1917 



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REMARKS ON SUPPLY ORGANIZATION OF 
THE FRENCH ARMY FROM THE VIEWPOINT 
OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER. 



Gen. Sharpe's Introduction. 



It is a pleasure, gentlemen, to be able to have with us this 
evening an officer who can give us some viewpoints of the con- 
flict now taking place in Europe from the French Army stand- 
point. The officer that I am going to have the pleasure of in- 
troducing to you this evening is connected with the regiment 
known as the Foreign Legion of the French Army. You may be 
somewhat familiar with that regiment, having read that de- 
lightful book of Ouida's, " Under Two Flags." 

I am not going to give you an account of the Legion or its 
organization, except to say that in the French Army the For- 
eign Legion is that body of troops which foreigners may join 
without taking an oath of office to the French Government ; the 
oath that they take is one to obey their officers, but that does 
not oblige them to become citizens of France. The book to 
which I referred, as you will recall, was for dramatic and ro- 
mantic reasons somewhat changed because one of the principal 
characters of the book was an Englishman who was supposed 
to have joined the Foreign Legion in the Cavalry. Well, the 
Foreign Legion is not a Cavalry organization. It is an In- 
fantry organization, which really consists of two legions divided 
into a number of different regiments and a very goodly number 
of these regiments are now and have been all through the war 
serving on the western front. 

I have the pleasure of introducing to you an officer of this 
famous body of troops, who has had in addition the honor to 
serve in other corps of the French Army ; and who entered the 
Foreign Legion at the beginning of the war as a second-class 
private, and who is to-day not only a captain of this famous 
regiment, but also a knight of the Legion of Honor. I have the 
honor to present to you, gentlemen, Captain Sweeny, of the 
Foreign Legion. 

(3) 



4 
CAPTAIN SWEENY'S LECTURE. 

Gen. Sharpe, gentlemen of the Quartermaster Corps, per- 
mit me first to express my appreciation of tlie very kind words 
with which Gen. Sharpe has introduced me this evening 
and of the honor I consider it to have the unusual privilege of 
addressing to-night the officers of another service. 

Of course, as you know, we in the Infantry are doing prac- 
tically all the fighting to-day, and it is for us. more or less, that 
everything is done. It is, of course, we who never get a chance 
to say what we think of the other fellow. Here's my chance and 
I am going to take advantage of it. 

In order to start out on a firm basis, let us for a moment 
treat of first principles. As you all know, the art of war, which, 
in parentheses, is perhaps the most difficult of all the arts, is 
divided for purposes of study into tw^o branches, strategy and 
tactics. Strategy may be defined as the art by which a com- 
mander endeavors to arrive on a field of battle to fight under 
conditions favorable to himself and unfavorable to his adver- 
sary. It is therefore the art of handling troops before bringing 
them on the battle field. This explains why Napoleon when he 
spoke of strategy never called it that ; always called it maneu- 
vering. It is clear that a fundamental and vital branch of 
maneuvering is the art which treats of the supplying of the 
troops who are being rapidly moved about the region in which 
the campaign is being fought out. This subject, bringing up 
of supplies to the tactical field of operations, has already been 
treated of before you by two distinguished officers ot the Eng- 
lish Army. Therefore I shall not treat of it, but shall take up 
the question from a point where strategy ceases, that is to say, 
the railhead, and try to treat of the tactical section only. 

What is tactics? Tactics is the art by which a commander 
endeavors to defeat an enemy with whom his strategical plans 
have brought him in contact. Briefly, it is the art of handling 
troops on the battle field, and necessarily the art of keeping them 
supplied with everything needed to carry on the engagement 
and bring it to a successful conclusion. Therefore for the supply 
department it is the question of getting upon the battle field 
the supplies of all kinds needed by the troops. This is the field 
which interests you particularly, and the only thing I can tell 
you of value to-night is relative to the tactical development of 
the modern battle field, and, in particular, how it has changed 
your problem. That is to say. I shall not tell you in particular 



about the organization of supply service, but treat of the prob- 
lem of getting the supplies to the troops in the first line. 

Before the war in our studies of tactics we laid out a beauti- 
ful checkerboard scheme of the different phases of a modern 
battle. We had the approach of the enemy's position laid out 
with great nicety and precision, then the assault with its rules 
of action as hard, fast, and immutable as those of the Medes 
and Persians ; then the exploitation of the success and the occu- 
pation of the conquered territory. 

Well, when we got to war it was all changed. It has been 
frequently said that the only school which really teaches the 
practice of war is war (La guerre enseigne la guerre), and 
the best classes in this school are those which are held in imme- 
diate contact with the enemy, because it is there, after all, that 
all effort comes to its final expression and that all questions are 
decided. From this it is clear that it is the troop, and especially 
the Infantry troop, that must be first considered ; it is for them 
that everything must be done, and they alone can say with au- 
thority whether or not any military service was well done and 
whether or not anything was missing. This general principle 
being laid down, I shall now try to tell you the actual state of 
tactic.^; on the western front, and from this treat of the new 
duties which are laid upon supply officers due to the un- 
precedented and extraordinary conditions of a modern battle 
field. 

In the actual condition of trench warfare the only phase of 
a tactical battle, as we studied it in time of peace, that is ac- 
tually practiced is the assault. The first and only object of the 
modern battle is the preparation and launching of one assault 
after another. The first assaulting force goes as far as it can, 
and when it is stopped it forms a position for the launching of 
a new assault by fresh troops. This has brought on an unfortu- 
nate condition. The military educator applies himself almost 
uniquely to the formation of a troop for the assault. The art 
of bringing a troop up to the assault parallel and of supplying 
it once it has been launched has been left in the shadow. The 
problem, however, is even more complicated under actual con- 
ditions than it was under the old conditions of open-field maneu- 
vers. Formerly a troop, a supply train, a convoy, or a part was 
spread over a more or less large space of ground, but was rela- 
tively under the direct control of its chief. Under actual condi- 
tions an approach takes place in miles of communicating trenches. 



6 • 

the men marching in Indian file, and there is no possibility of 
control between the point of entrance and the " debouchee." 

This qiiestion of approach I am trying to insist upon to 
l)ririg home to you, gentlemen of the Quartermaster Corps, the 
problem that you are going to be called upon to solve when 
you arrive on the battle fields of France. The modern battle 
field is very dense. In the battle of Champagne we were three 
army corps deep. The trenches went back over 5 or 6 kilo- 
meters. In this distance there was massed on a front of 1,500 
meters eight regiments of 3,000 men; you can figure out for 
yourselves the difficult problem of supply under these con- 
ditions. 

By this long introduction I have arrived at the only thing 
of value I have to say to you. I should like to insist upon 
the extreme importance that all officers of the supply service 
wlio are charged or who might be charged with the duty of 
bringing supplies on a battle field should .study the elementary 
rules of Infantry tactics, and especially the ways and means 
of an Infantry approach. This means especially that all supply 
officers should know and should strictly apply the rules of 
circulation in communicating ti-enches, and as a corollary to 
these phouUl establish a close liaison between themselves and 
the commander of their unit. 

Communicating trenches are now built from the first line 
back to the zone in which the artillery fire of the enemy is 
no longer efficacious. This has taken a great extension since 
the battle of Verdun. Before that battle we established our 
liasis through woods or behind hills screened from the enemy's 
view and considered that we had no need of communicating 
trenches. We very soon found out our mistake, as the Germans 
submitted our communicating lines to a zone bombardment and 
cut ofL' completely the forces in the first lines. This is the real 
cause of the rapid German advance in the first stage of this 
battle. At the present time the trenches go back six or seven 
Icilometers from the front. 

The men in charge of the supply department have really at 
the present a very easy job as long as their troops remain in 
a quiet sector. The officer in charge of the regimental train 
takes the supplies at the railhead, transports them to a point 
of meeting indicated by the colonel of the regiment or the 
commander of the battalion, where he is met by the fatigue 
parties of the different companies. These fatigue parties come- 



back from the front carrying shelter tents, halves, marmits, or 
Nvater buckets in canvas, and by this means provisions are 
carried from the supply point to the front-line trenches. How- 
ever, when your regiment is sent to the attack the problem 
changes completely. 

The law is very strict at the present time ; no man shall be 
sent from the front to the rear under any pretext whatever 
unless to carry orders or wounded. Anything that comes from 
the back must be sent up by tJie services of the rear bv their 
own means. For this purpose at the beginning of an attack a 
certain number of territorial troops are put at the disposition 
of the officer charged with the supplying of the firing line 
Immediately he has before him the problem which I have been 
trying to make clear— the problem of transportation in under- 
ground circulating trenches. But first he has the problem of 
finding out where his regiment is. If your regiment happens to 
have been one of those which lead the attack, it could easily 
happen that after two or four hours of battle it would have 
been passed by three or four supporting regiments and would be 
necessarily more or less mixed up in them. 

Napoleon said that the thing that counted most in war was 
the morale of the troops. Now, the morale of the Infantrv is 
something very delicate, something that you have to keep up 
m any and every way, and which must be carefully nursed 
along. Troops are good one minute and half an hour after- 
guards go to pieces. No one ever knows why. There is nothing 
better to keep up the morale than to have supplies come 
promptly to the front. The infantryman going to the front is 
very likely to throw away everything he has— preserved meat, 
bread, etc.— to carry grenades, ammunition, etc., and for him it 
is a very comfortable thing after the hard labor of difficult 
assault to have something to eat, and especially something hot 
to drink, promptly from the rear. If the supply officer really 
knows his business he will, as a rule, keep the kitchens working- 
at all times, so that he will be able to send up at the psycho- 
logical moment a cup of hot coffee, which is worth a good many 
cartridges and shells. 

This suggests another idea. It is evident that in times of 
great distress the circulation on the roads behind the front be- 
comes very intense. I have already told you how deep an 
attacking force is. At the Battle of the Somme we were four 
army corps deep. We, the First Colonial Army Corps, were ia 



8 

the first front line, back of us was the Sixth Army Corps, back 
of the Sixth the Twentieth, and back of the Twentieth the 
Eleventh. You can imagine the roads which were used to feed 
this attack were encumbered — four army corps of about 35,000 
men each, one behind the other, and the supply trains behind 
them. From this it is clear that the supply officer must have 
on the end of his fingers the rules of circulation of troops and 
trains — marching tactics. We must know the length, the prob- 
able lengthening out, the speed of march of columns, as also the 
rules which govern the crossings of routes and the passing of 
columns. This may not seem very important, but anyone Mho 
has read of the awful mix up which took place when Bazaine 
tried to cross the Moselle, and afterwards in his retreat to 
Metz, would appreciate what I mean. These rules of terrestrial 
circulation have been carefully studied out, but the correspond- 
ing rules for subterranean circulation are only commencing to 
be known. 

Conclusion : The study of tactics and especially of marching 
tactics is of the first importance to all supply officers and espe- 
cially to those who are actually in command of supply trains at 
the front. 

Now that I have told you what is not at the present time 
published, I shall say a few words about the organization of a 
supply department of the French Army as an Infantry officer 
sees it. We have in France two officers who are charged in 
each battalion with the supplying of the troops — the " officier 
d'approvisionment " and the " officier de details." The " officier 
d'approvisionment " commands the regimental train, which is 
divided into three sections, two sections carry each of them a 
day's rations and assure alternatively the revictualing of the 
regiment. The third section is the reserve section and carries 
l)esides the war bread enough necessary supplies to complete 
the two other sections if needed. The regimental train as 
actually formed at the front consists of: For the regiment, 13 
fourgons of supplies, 3 meat wagons, 2 forage wagons, 2 wagons 
for supplies and baggage, a rolling kitchen, a forge, and finally 
a light wagon for tools prepared for the transportation of a light 
forge; for each battalion, one wagon for supplies and baggage; 
for each company and machine-gun company, one wagon for su])- 
plies and baggage and one rolling kitchen. 

When the troops are in quiet secture the role of this train is 
to take the supplies from the railhead to a central rendezvous 



4 



D 

Avhere it is met by the fatigue details of the different companies 
which carry the provisions into the trenches. In times of 
attack the problem is more difficult, as I have indicated above, 
and the supplies must be transported right into the first line. 

The '* officier de details " commands the combat train. It con- 
sists of: For the regiment, 2 light wagons for tools, 1 large 
wagon for wounded, 1 wagon for wheel barrels, stretchers, and 
material to counteract asphyxiating gases ; 3 wagons with tele- 
phonic material, barb wire, and grenades; 6 water wagons; for 
each battalion, a medical wagon and an ammunition wagon ; for 
each company, an ammunition wagon ; for each machine-gun 
company, four ammunition caissons. 

In France the combat train is divided into two echelons which 
we call T Ci and T C2. T Ci, which marches immediately after 
its unit, and T. C2, which in general are reunited by brigade 
under the conniiand of the oldest and the officier de details. 
The difference between this and what you will find in books 
you read about the formation of the trains in the French Army 
before tlie war — that is, at that time the trains were united by 
regiments. We also considered the bringing up of supplies by 
fatigue parties sent from the front. That, as I have explained, 
has all been changed. 

Let me thank you very much, gentlemen, for your kind atten- 
tion and appreciation. 



